


Surrender

by transkeithkogane



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Canon Compliant, Spoilers, Trans Male Character, Trans Peter Parker, and as such there's some references to it, but i wrote it with him being trans in mind, peter being trans isn't a huge part of this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 11:08:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14519208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transkeithkogane/pseuds/transkeithkogane
Summary: A smart man once told Peter Parker, "Bravery is not the absence of fear, but the will to overcome it."A look into Peter's thoughts at the end of Infinity War.Major Infinity War Spoilers.





	Surrender

**Author's Note:**

> In case you didn't see in the summary, there are **MAJOR INFINITY WAR SPOILERS** in this story so read at your own risk!
> 
> If you do not want to read spoilers, please look away immediately!!! I'm going to spoil things further down in this note. 
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> \-----  
> Please be advised that there are major character deaths in this fic. I didn't use the archive warnings because I didn't want to spoil anything for those who haven't seen it so this is the warning here!!
> 
> The real summary of this fic is five times Peter Parker almost died and one time he did.

The first time, he’s barely eight years old, had his birthday party at the Chuck E Cheese down the street just the week before. He’s tinkering around with a computer that’s older than him, nimble fingers slipping in and out of the dirtied plastic, tracing wires like they’ll divulge all their secrets to him with a single touch. 

The next thing he knows, he’s waking up on his bedroom floor, lungs gasping for air and feeling like he’s walked for hours in a desert with no water source. Aunt May is blurry in his vision, hovering over him as she wraps a t-shirt around his burned hands, scoops him up into her arms. 

The first time doesn’t scare him. Maybe because he’s fearless at that age, climbing too high on the jungle gym, leaping from swings at their highest point, running too fast down crowded sidewalks. His knees are mottled with healing scabs and fresh scrapes. The bandages wrapped around the burns on his forearms are just another badge of honor that he shows off to Ned with a smile on his face.

He’s back at it the next day, a screwdriver in one hand, a rubber glove slapped on the other, a precaution that Aunt May wishes he’d take a bit more seriously, as he delves back into the mess of wires. 

——————

The second time, he’s eleven and the other boys corner him in a filthy corner of their public school bathroom, clench their fists and sneer down at him. 

“Freak.”

“Faggot.” 

“We don’t want you here.” 

Uncle Ben’s tried to teach him how to square up properly, after the first time he came home with a black eye, but his hands shake as he balls them into fists now. He swings anyway because that’s what Captain America would do, would duck and weave until he’s exhausted and then do it some more, but his punch goes wide, teeters him off-balance. 

It’s a mistake, swinging first, gives them another reason to exert all their misplaced aggression on him, and he’s outnumbered four to one. He’s always been an easy target, smaller, thinner, too dumb to know when to shut his mouth. 

They don’t let up until he’s staggering, black spots blooming in his vision. All he can smell is the coppery tang of blood as it dribbles down his lips, over his chin. He can taste it in the back of his mouth, tries his best to stem the flow with one hand as he forces himself to straighten up. His whole head is throbbing, one eye already swelling shut, jaw stiff when he tries to open it. He keeps his right hand raised. 

“Is that all you’ve got?” 

He’s proud that his voice doesn’t shake when he lunges at the largest bully, a boy with a solid couple of inches and at least fifty pounds on him. 

He feels the shove in the pit of his stomach, stumbles, splays his hands wide to catch his fall, but a sink comes up to meet him before the floor and his head connects the porcelain with a sickening crack.

He wakes up in the sterile haze of a hospital bed, a jagged line of stitches carving their way across the right side of his forehead. 

——————

He doesn’t really count the third time. In retrospect, the anxiety and cold sweats, the searing burn through his bloodstream are all small prices to pay for superpowers. But, in the moment, they’re torture, sweat trickling down through his hair, soaking into his tangled bedsheets as he writhes, tries to draw air into lungs that won’t expand properly. 

His eyes drag to the illuminated red numbers at his bedside. 3 am, with Aunt May and Uncle Ben sleeping peacefully the next room over. His hand itches, throbs, and he shoves his face into his pillow to keep from screaming, or maybe from sobbing. He’s not sure if it’s tears or sweat stinging at his eyes when he squeezes them shut, presses fingers over the swollen bite mark the spider’s fangs left behind. He wonders if Aunt May and Uncle Ben will forgive him, for being careless, for not telling them he was hurt, for disappearing just like his parents did. 

After he makes it through the night, he’s mostly fearless about it, takes all the changes in stride. They’re not bad changes. Some of them are changes he’s been waiting for his whole life, like whatever’s flowing through his veins just knows. Knows that he’s fascinated by the muscles that start to rise under his skin, the angular jut of his jaw, the raw power that has him scaling the sides of abandoned buildings in the middle of the night just because he _can_. 

Everything is new and shiny and out of some kind of movie. He’ll take a thousand more nights like that one if it means living in this dream for forever. 

——————

The fourth time, the gunshot reverberates loud in the empty alley, shocks a ringing in his ears that’s so piercing he doubles over. His heartbeat is fast and he’s afraid it’s going to seize up as he dodges the next shot on pure instinct, pure spider-y reflexes. It doesn’t feel like a victory, doesn’t feel like the rush of excitement he gets when he’s swinging from rooftops, the warmth in the pit of his stomach when someone thanks him for a job well done.

It feels like the way his heart skipped a beat the last time he heard that noise, the echo followed by the smell of gunpowder, in another time, another place, a different victim. Familiar eyes slipping closed as Peter raced to his side. He remembers his eyes so clearly, that blue he used to stare up at when he was tucked into bed, told stories of faraway lands and heroes who were destined to save them. 

Peter thinks destiny is a bit of a bitch, especially right now, especially when his back is against the wall and he’s pretty sure he can't survive a gunshot to the head. He wishes for the fearlessness of eight, to be able to swing into action without considering the consequences, wishes there weren’t so many consequences at all. 

He tries to remember one of the quotes Uncle Ben used to recite to him while he was cleaning out split lips and eyebrows. _Bravery is not the absence of fear, but the will to overcome it_. That’s why he throws himself into every situation, ignores the swell of anxiety in his stomach, because there’s always something more important than his own fear, someone to save, someone to protect from the same fear that threatens to freeze his muscles, render him useless. 

——————

The fifth, it’s a building dropped on his head, rubble and dust twisting its way up to the sky. He can feel his ribs threatening to give out, to shatter into a million pieces like his bravery right now. This time, he can’t stop the way his heart begin to pound out of control, a staccato that pushes back against the inside of him, makes his whole chest claw with white-hot pain. He’s dying, he’s _dying_. This is what dying feels like, broken and weak and scared. He can’t do anything but lay there, listen to his own erratic breathing as his fingers grip at crumbled concrete as though the collapse around him will turn back into bedsheets and this will all be a nightmare. 

How long would it take them to find his body? Would they ever find it? Would he die as Spiderman or as Peter Parker? There’s a sob rising in his chest which only makes the pressure all the more unbearable, makes him cough and choke. 

“Please.” 

He doesn’t want to die, knows that now with a clarity he’s never had before. He has so much more he has to do. Has to stop Toomes, has to graduate high school, has to join to Avengers. Has to do all the things he never thought he’d be able to do. Has to move _forward_. Has to make him proud by saving the world. 

——————

It starts as a whisper, like a soft breath of air across the back of his neck, standing his hair on end. It’s not something wrong but rather, the absence of anything good. His surroundings suddenly feel far away, out of focus. When he tries to inhale, the air gets caught in his throat, makes him hiccup a strange sob. 

“Mr. Stark? I-I don’t feel so good.” His voice sounds like someone else’s, small and ghostly, barely audible over the delayed explosions around them. He runs his fingers over his own forearm. He can’t feel the touch, feels cold in its place. Nothing. That’s what this is. Just… nothing. Nothing, in a terrifying, awful way. Nothing, like he’s never going to feel anything ever again. Nothing, like disappearing. 

He can’t. Not him, not now, not like this. 

He thinks of Aunt May, thinks of how she’s going to wait up for him every night, watch the five o’ clock news religiously for any hint that he might be coming home, that he might still be out there.

If she’s even still alive. 

Are any of them going to survive? 

He doesn’t want to go, doesn’t want to leave this all behind, the life that he’s always dreamed of. 

He’s trying so hard, to hold everything together, like he can keep his atoms from separating, stop the inescapable pull on every fibre of his being to unravel, to cease existing. 

His fingers scrabble at the fabric of Tony’s shirt, catch on the edges of his broken armor as he falls into the older man. 

“I don’t wanna go.” 

Saying the words seems like a defeat. He’d stop them if he could but he can feel his strength fading, darkness beginning to encroach on the edge of his vision no matter how he forces his eyes open. 

His heartbeat is slowing, the muscle agonizingly squeezing to pump blood through a body that doesn’t want to exist anymore, that can’t exist anymore. He thinks it might hurt less if he lets go, but letting go means letting that darkness swallow him up and he doesn’t want to go into that alone. He doesn’t want to be alone. 

He can’t be brave like this, can’t put a snarky spin on the situation, can’t scream, can’t fight. 

“I don’t wanna go. Mr. Stark.” 

There’s no bravery in this, no valor, no rhyme or reason, just emptiness, just disappearing thoughts and words and lives. He doesn’t want to go. Let him go back to Queens, to Aunt May, to building Legos with Ned, to pop quizzes and homework, and _living_. 

He can feel tears stinging the corners of his eyes as his legs give out, as the world tilts crooked on its axis. He barely feels his back hit the ground, can see Tony’s lips moving but there’s no words, no sound. There’s a rushing in his ears and he wishes it was blood, wishes it was his body roaring back to life, but he’s flaking away, fingers turning to dust before his eyes. 

He forces a rasping breath into his lungs, parts his lips as though the air on this foreign planet will revive him, will save him from this meaningless fate. He wants Tony to save him from this. 

“I-I’m sorry-” 

He can pinpoint the very second his heart stops, can feel the weight of it sitting cold in his chest, and then there’s nothing but ash on the cosmic breeze. 

**Author's Note:**

> Anyway, I watched Infinity War last weekend and had a lot of feelings, especially in regards to That Scene, so naturally this is what came out of it. 
> 
> Also trans Peter is my favorite concept. 
> 
> Feedback, comments, and kudos are always, always appreciated! Also, you can find me on tumblr at [transkeithkogane](https://transkeithkogane.tumblr.com/) so feel free to chat with me there!


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